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Dawn of War II VoDs and live streams
Example commentary cast of a Head-to-Head (1v1) match by HarlequinCasts in 1080p HD The Dawn of War II series – with current multiplayer matches happening in the Dawn of War II: Retribution system since February 2011 – has always had an active live streaming scene with mostly full coverage of tournaments and cup-style events as well as noteworthy ladder/custom matches. Some channels have made theme casts of mid- or newbie-level matches as well, focusing on gameplay basics and typical mistakes. The major Youtube casting and live streaming channels are listed below. In the past, Dawn of War II replay coverage emphasized 1v1 games (aka Head to Head) over 2v2 and 3v3 games (aka Team Games). That has changed, and today's currently active casters now focus on 3v3 instead of 1v1. Currently Active Channels The following are the currently active Dawn of War II: Retribution channels as of February 2020. All alive channels nowadays cast Elite Mod replays only. There is currently no channel that deals with vanilla Retribution. Indrid Casts Formerly known as Dawn of War Replays, Indrid Casts is the largest Dawn of War II: Retribution channel on YouTube with over 29,449 subscribers. Indrid, the channel owner casts and commentates on high-level Dawn of War II: Retribution Elite Mod replays in 1080p quality. He completely transferred over to Elite Mod since early 2013 and does not cast vanilla Retribution replays. His upload schedule is often sporadic and not regular but he never once went missing for an entire year. This steadiness is what made him the best Dawn of War II: Retribution caster up to date. * Indrid Casts - YouTube * Dawn of War Replays website For more details on his Youtube channel read this article. He receives donations through his patreon page. https://www.patreon.com/indrid Maestro Casts Started in December 2012, relatively late in the life of Dawn of War II: Retribution, Maestro Casts was the second largest Dawn of War II: Retribution channel on YouTube with over 4,865 subscribers throughout the years of 2013 and 2014. He filled in the gap left by Red-Rupee until he made his return on September of 2014. After Rupee's return, he coexisted side by side with Red-Rupee Casts as the third largest Dawn of War II: Retribution channel on Youtube. He officially announced that he will quit casting on September of 2015. He made a brief return after the announcement of Dawn of War 3 on May of 2016 but went dormant again on June of 2017. Back in Dawn of War II casting days, his main contents were very similar to that of Indrid Casts. He would do mostly 3v3 casts, some 1v1 casts and very little 2v2 casts just like how Indrid did. Unlike Red-Rupee, he did not cast any major tournaments. He announced his return in January of 2020. * Maestro Casts - YouTube (last activity 11-June-2017) GeneralsGentlemen Started in June 2011, GeneralsGentlemen is a shout caster with over 19,145 subscribers who casts a variety of RTS games such as C&C Generals, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War and Rise of Nations. He also does RTS reviews and makes video essays that analyzes and discusses RTS design philosophy. The main content of his channel is casting C&C Generals and Company of Heroes 2. However, he has been sporadically but constantly casting Elite Mod replays from time to time since March of 2016. * GeneralsGentlemen - Youtube Inactive Channels BbBos Casts Started in August 2015, BbBos Casts was the third largest Dawn of War II: Retribution channel with over 889 subscribers until its fall in August of 2016. The channel originally started in order to fill up the gap left by Maestro Casts when it went inactive in September of 2015. Also, around that time of the year, Red-Rupee Casts happened to be casting less and less games. Therefore, his newly started channel was welcomed by all the members of Elite Mod community. He started to fervently churn out top quality casts starting from December of 2015 and lots of players liked his channel because he casted more replays and more low to mid level replays compared to Indrid. However, as his growth was swift, his fall was also swift. He declared he had to stop casting games on August of 2016 because of real life issues. In the end, his channel did not last even an year after he started casting in December of the previous year. His loss was hard felt throughout the entire Elite Mod community as he was the most active caster/streamer at that time. Before his fall, he mainly casted 3v3 and 1v1. Beside 3v3 and 1v1, he covered both beginner and pro level 1v1 tournaments, team tournaments and faction wars from time to time. On top of that, he had a twitch stream going too once a week as he was a decently skilled player himself. Beside above activities, the most notable content he created was Top Plays series. For Top Plays series, he received several replays which had moments of ridiculously destructive combos and editted and compiled those moments into a very short clip before posting it on his channel. He also casted 2015 Winter Clan Wars. After a long absence, he made a return on December of 2018. Since his return, he has been focusing on streaming Monthly Team Tournaments(2v2) and Monthly Faction Wars(3v3). Unlike in the past, he does not actively receive replays and cast them but prefers to upload entire streams of both MTT and MFW with timestamps in the description. Other content he covers the most beside MTT and MFW is Elite Mod league(1v1). When covering the league, he gets replays for the league from Elite Mod forums website which are auto uploaded into the website by ESL reporter and casts them individually. He tries to cover different games from Indrid to maximize the coverage of the league. Just like how he did before the for-mentioned absence, he plays Elite Mod regularly and also streams his plays on Twitch. In addition, he continues his old contents like Top Plays and casting of Clan Wars. He decided to stop Youtube activity again around December of 2019. * Interview * BbBos Casts - Youtube * BbBos - TwitchTV Rostam Casts Established in March 2014, Rostam Casts started as an archive channel for collecting various Warhammer related casts, movies, lore videos from other channels. However, when the need for a new caster was made clear with the fall of BbBos Casts in August of 2016, he decided to turn his channel into a proper casting channel for Dawn of War II: Retribution Elite Mod on December of 2016. Ever since then, his channel has grown into the third largest Dawn of War II: Retribution channel on Youtube with over 1092 subscribers. Currently, he receives replays of both Elite Mod and Soul Storm for casting. He is an all rounder in terms of content he provides. He casts equal amounts of 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, faction wars and tournaments without leaning heavily towards casting one type of content. He also from time to time organizes faction wars of his own for casting on his channel and Indrid's. Recently he started to cast Soul Storm replays. On August of 2018, he made an announcement that his real life is taking a toll on time he can spend on DOW related Youtube casts. He covered almost the entire Elite League Season 2 as a parting gift before he left the community. * Rostam Casts - Youtube (last activity 21-August-2018) Red-Rupee Casts Established in October 2011, Red-Rupee Casts (formerly known as FitzRupee Casts) was for a long time the second largest Dawn of War II: Retribution channel on YouTube in the post-Harlequin era of casting, with over 5,419 subscribers. Red-Rupee was also very involved in providing livestream coverage of Retribution tournaments and Elite Mod tournaments with his Twitch channel. Red-Rupee Casts went inactive on May of 2013 and gave up his position of the second largest Dawn of War II: Retribution channel on Youtube to Maestro Casts. He reclaimed the title of the second largest channel when he made the return on September of 2014. He went missing again on March of 2017 but made a return on February of 2018. After that, he has gone missing again after the last video on April of 2018. His channel focuses heavily on 1v1 tournament coverage and 1v1 casts over 3v3 casts unlike other channels. He has numerous Elite Mod 1v1 tournament footage up to Winter of 2016. In addition, he also retains a ton of footage of old retribution era tournaments and casts. * FitzRupee Casts - YouTube (last activity 3-April-2018) * RedRupee - Twitch * FitzRupee Casts - Facebook Monthly Rumble Tournament The Monthly Rumble Tournament channel was created specifically for the Elite Mod community's Monthly Rumble Tournament series. While Indrid Casts and Maestro Casts focus more on team games, the Monthly Rumble Tournament channel is largely dedicated to 1v1 games. * Monthly Rumble Tournament - YouTube (last activity 7-August-2014) GameReplays.org The GameReplays.org (GR) replay database and forum was for a long time the main hub for regular Dawn of War II players, and the hangout for all those epic pros you've seen on casts. GR used different casting services for different events. However, ever since the bankruptcy of THQ and the advent of Elite Mod, all pro players transferred to Elite Mod and its forum. With pros gone, the site declined and died out around the year of 2014. Its replay uploading system is still in use by some players but other sections of the forum are totally abandoned. * gamereplaysdow2 - TwitchTV (last activity 15-October-2012) * gamereplays.org Legacy Channels The following are the currently inactive pre-retribution and retribution era channels. Harlequin Casts Formerly the largest Dawn of War II: Retribution channel on YouTube with over 5000 subscribers, Harlequin Casts has been inactive since May 2011. Harlequin Casts was started in February 2011 when Dawn of War II: Retribution went into beta, with the support and attention of Relic Entertainment. His library of casts can still be viewed on YouTube. * Harlequin Casts - YouTube Good Games Live The most established Dawn of War II channel, Dow2live – renamed to Good Games Live in March 2012 – has been active since 2009 and casted games throughout the whole series. The current activity is on their own domain and own3D channel, but older casts on YouTube, Ustream and Livestream are still viewable. * Dawn of War 2 Livecasts - YouTube (last activity 15-October-2012) * DOW2LIVE on USTREAM * Dawn of War LiveCast (Steam Group) BlessedJosh Rites of Initation(Nooby Mondays) Started in January 2013, after Dawn of War 2: Retributon lost its support but was revived by the Elite Mod, BlessedJosh currently streams beginner friendly live casts for players looking to improve and transition over from the Retail version to the Elite Mod. He is the most active Dawn of War 2 live streamer to date, however his streams have slowly declined in regularity due to University. * DarkcoccoSpatan - Youtube * BlessedJosh -Twitch.tv L2P Casts The Project L2P group made some tournament casts during early Retribution era; no HD quality, but commentary is directed to beginning players, which may help. Unfortunately, their links were completely destroyed over the course of years and all of their footage was lost. Shalesey Casts Started shortly after the release of Dawn of War II: Retribution (so no old vanilla or Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising casts here), Shalesey Casts was the most active channel for a good while, with its video count >800 at October 2011. The technical quality of streams is not quite as good as on Dow2live or Harlequin, but coverage is good. * Shalesey Casts - YouTube (last Dow2r related activity 8 jan 2012 (15 oct 2012)) WasteMaLife WasteMaLife has been casting Dawn of War II: Retribution matches since October 2011, available in 1080p HD with an Australian accent. * WasteMaLife - YouTube (last activity 8 aug 2012 (15 Oct 2012)) Zonin Zonin is a Project L2P member who has been casting matches since January 2012. Stream seems to have games from different skill levels, and PoV as well as commentary. * YouTube - ZoninSilverflame Rokco Rokco is one of the new channels, casting both match commentaries and PoV gameplay in HD since February 2012 or so. Recent casts include matches from the ESL 1v1 Midskilled Cup 2 and Community Game-Night 2.0. * Rokco Casts (Steam Group) BUDCAST The BUDCAST channel of steve bud (a veteran player best known for his Eldar and Orks in 1v1) started casting commentaries in March 2012. HD casts of fairly high-level matches so far. * YouTube - steve bud's BUDCAST (last activity 14 oct 2012 (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - steve_bud * steve bud casts dow2 (Steam Group) PoV streams There are a number of players who aren't really doing commentaries on matches played by other people, but record Point of View (PoV) casts of themselves playing. This type of cast allows viewers to see the actual micro (use of camera and mouse/keyboard commands), which can be interesting and educational. All own3D links were destroyed. * TwitchTV - Vindicarex VindicareX is a high-level SM and CSM player. He is the only surviving member of PoV streamers of retribution era. He started to mainly play Dawn of War III when it came out. However, at the same time, he did not altogether quit playing Elite Mod and played it from time to time. When relic officially announced that they are going to stop the support for DOWIII, he decided to quit streaming it. After that event he planned to resume his stream with DOW1 or DOW2 once he has more time on hand and he really did continue streaming until the early 2019. - In 2019, he continues to stream from time to time but totally quit playing Elite Mod. Thus fell the last remaining member of PoV streamers of Retribution era. * own3D - Edtjuh Edtjuh, a top player expert on all factions (last activity 2012-02-14 (15 oct 2012)) - He quit playing regularly shortly after the release of Retribution. He is still around but too busy to play any games that require long term commitment like Elite Mod. * TwitchTV - Carnevour1 Carnevour (last activity dow2r related mar 31 (15 oct 2012)) - Carnevour did not continue his streams after the fall of THQ but at least stayed around in Elite Mod until the advent of Dawn of War 3. He left the community after getting into heated arguments regarding Dawn of War 3 with majority of Elite Mod players who did not like it. * TwitchTV - harryruss HARRY RUSS, a high-level IG player (last activity feb 29 (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - HARRYstreams yeah the same guy (last activity mar 28 (15 oct 2012)) - Harry did not continue his streams after the fall of THQ and went absent. He made a return to Elite Mod around March of 2016 but left the community a month later after getting into heated arguments regarding Elite Mod balance with majority of other high skilled Elite Mod players. * own3D - Iconoclast's own channel Iconoclast, a Good Games Live staff member (last activity 2012-04-29 (15 oct 2012)) * own3D - L0ckf34r Locklear, a high-level Space Marine player (thecnical issues/offline (15 oct 2012)) * own3D - mektown Trojan, Russian cast (last activity 2012-05-13 (15 oct 2012)) * own3D - raaar raaar, a high-level player competent with most factions (last activity 2011-06-15 (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - choinnh NareYa, a high-level Tyranid and Ork player (channel could not be found (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - GuruSkippy GuruSkippy, a high-level Ork player (last activity dow2r related jan 25 (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - Jaakko112 AngryBeaver (noobcast), random team battles (last dow2r related activity uncertain/nun left (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - LockyCasts Locklear, a high-level Space Marine player (last activity apr 27 (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - phatness_ PhatE, occasional Ork casts (last activity 9 oct (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - UncleDoland Wurgl, a high-level Eldar, IG and Tyranid player (last activity mar 22 (15 oct 2012)) * TwitchTV - SackPatrol SackPatrol, noob-level CSM player in training (not active anymore) Why is 2v2 underrepresented in Youtube casts? 2v2 has never been the focus of game play in both Youtube casting and live streaming. This is because 2v2 did not adequately meet the need of Dawn of War II player base. There has been and are largely two categories of players in Dawn of War II excluding those who play The Last Stand and The Campaign. One group is 1v1 focused hardcore competition oriented players while the other one is 3v3 focused relatively more casual oriented players. The former did not like 2v2 since their focus was on highly competitive 1v1. The later greatly preferred 3v3 over 2v2 because 3v3 was much better at fulfilling their needs. When the Dawn of War II was launched, not all of Dawn of War I players liked the change of game play style into smaller scaled and more tactical style of combat. They advocated the famous slogan of "Dawn of War I style game with Dawn of War II graphics". However, the change of game play style was set in stone and nothing could change that fact. At that moment, resenting players were presented with two options. Either stop playing Dawn of War series altogether or stay in Soul Storm. The problem was both options were not something that everyone could accept. The later option was not so appealing back in 2009 because playing multiplayer matches in Soul Storm back then was painfully difficult. A lot of Dawn of War I fans transferred to try out Dawn of War II and unpatched Soul Storm was plagued by numerous bugs that fatally affected balance in multiplayer. Those two factors made Soul Storm into a buggy and very undermanned game. On the other hand, obviously the former option of quitting altogether was also not appealing to all players. As such, for those who neither wanted to quit the game nor to stay in Soul Storm but at the same time wanted to play the newest Dawn of War game with flashy new graphics, there was a need for an alternative. That alternative was 3v3, annihilation game mode and high resources. Although Dawn of War II game play was not up to their taste, they still liked its flashy new graphics and by playing on 3v3, annihilation game mode and high resources, they could somewhat retain that feel of large scale battles of Dawn of War I while fulfilling the desire for enjoying new graphics at the same time. This is why they did not like 2v2 since in their eyes it was a downgraded version of 3v3. Less players meant smaller scale of battle and in their standard bigger the battle the better so it was only logical for them to choose 3v3 over 2v2. In conclusion, 2v2 is not popular because it did not appeal to both of two major category of players. To 1v1 competition oriented players, 2v2 was less competitive compared to 1v1. To 3v3 casual oriented players, the scale of battle was not big enough compared to 3v3. As such, the number of 2v2 replays sent to Youtube casters is much smaller compared to 3v3 and 1v1 and Youtube casters themselves prefer to cast 1v1 and 3v3 replays more as there is a sharp decline in viewership number when he or she is casting 2v2 replays. This is the reason why 2v2 is largely underrepresented in Youtube casts. Category:Dawn of War II Category:Chaos Rising Category:Retribution